Natalia Duarte

I am interested in social and revolutionary movements, armed conflicts, and inequality. In my MA thesis I sought to understand how wars and mobilization for peace shape former guerrilla’s collective action after the end of armed revolutions/armed conflicts, and how ex-combatants with long experiences of warfare find a place in transitional/peacetimes. I did this by studying the case of former combatants of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) through ethnographic work. I will expand this research for my dissertation by analyzing to what extent revolutionary activity can continue after the end of armed struggles. Parallelly, I have been involved as the regional coordinator of data collection and analysis for the Latin American and the Caribbean region in the collaborative Gender Equality in Public Administration (GEPA) Working Group between the UNDP and professors Melanie Hughes and Müge Finkel. Currently, Dr. Hughes and I are analyzing the impact of peace and armed conflict on the career obstacles confronted by women public administrators in different places in Colombia. Before coming to Pittsburgh, I studied issues related to armed conflicts, state institutional capacity, human rights, criminal networks, and wartime violence in Colombia and other Latin American countries, as well as urban poverty and inequality.